Demon Named Shinobi
by Bushido Jack
Summary: Assasin, murderer, arsonist, terrorist, theif and spy, monster and devil, all for the highest bidder. That is what a shinobi is.
1. It Begins

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I'm making no profit from this work of fiction, so you'd best keep those lawyers away from me. We don't take kindly to lawyers in these here parts. Ain't overly fond of mimes either.

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto was sitting on the ground of Training Field 7, tied to a log, watching his "team"1 walk off into the sunset. He wasn't sure if they had forgotten him or if they just didn't care. What he was sure of was just how tired he was of this shit, because these kind of circumstances were, unfortunately, quite common for the young blond. He had been ignored, looked down upon, and outright hated since the day he was born. Now usually at this point, young Naruto would yell and swear half the night until he finally managed to work himself free. He would go home, sleep a few hours, and then wake-up early to stand around for three hours until his sensei showed up for that day's "training"2. Between the lack of sleep and the three hours of boredom, Naruto would have forgotten to even be mad at his "team" by lunchtime. However, this particular Naruto, in this particular universe, had unfortunately (for those who pissed him off anyway) reached his limit. And so Uzumaki Naruto snapped. Or maybe he broke he knew he heard some kind of sound in his head but he wasn't sure if it was a snap or a break. Either way, it was at that point that Uzumaki Naruto did something most people had thought less likely than Jiraiya taking a vow of celibacy. He gave up. He gave up on ever being Hokage, on making the villagers respect him, on winning the fair (I think I just threw-up a little) Sakura3, on ever being more than the village pariah, and on ever finding happiness. Now, unknown to most people, Naruto had given up in the past, though usually someone came along (usually Iruka or the Hokage) and cheered him up. Even the few times when this hadn't happened, a quick walk around town, ending with some random act of kindness, had always returned him to his usual hyper self. This time however, he was tied to a log in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his own depressing thoughts to listen to and lacking the necessary give a damn to work himself free. This had the effect of forcing the orange prankster to think. This was something he strove to avoid doing because left alone with his thoughts for too long, Naruto inevitably put himself in an angst spiral, something he refused to allow himself to do mainly because after several years of being compared to Uchiha Sasuke, Rookie of the Year and Lord of the Emos4, it made him physically ill to do anything at all like the bastard. 'Which is probably why I suck and no one likes me and my senseis refuse to train me.' Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain speaking, we have now entered an angst spiral, we recommend getting away from all sharp objects as you may be overcome by the urge to slit your wrists.

'I can't believe they left me. Ah, who am I kidding, I'm lucky they didn't piss on me while they had me tied up. I should have known not to get my hopes up. You always hear ninja talk about how their original teams were like their family or something. Of course, I should have known no one would ever want to be related to the demon. That bastard Sasuke, acting so cool but he still got his ass kicked. And Sakura, she's supposed to be the smartest kunoichi in our year but all she can think about is Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke. If I had died she wouldn't have even batted an eye. Hell, I'm pretty sure she would have killed me to save Sasuke if Kakashi had given her a little more time to get over the shock. Oh, and that fucker. I bet he'll be like all the rest; he'll fawn all over Sasuke and leave me to rot. I bet he won't teach me anything to make sure I die on a mission, and then they'll all laugh at about it and the villagers will throw a big festival and make Sasuke the Hokage.'5

Ah, the wonders of the human heart. How quickly a sea of sorrow can freeze into cold, black hatred. And as we all know, when Naruto gets angry one of two thinks occur. He either gives a monologue and beats some sense into the source of his anger or brings much woe down upon the one who caused the anger. And Mr. Uzumaki is not in a chatty mood right now.

'I'll show them, I'll show them all just how strong I can be. I'm through waiting for people to respect me, to like me, to actually give a damn whether I live or die. If they won't recognize me on their own then I'll just make them. I'll become so powerful they'll have no choice but to acknowledge me. Then when they ask me, no beg me to be Hokage, I'll tell them to stick it up their asses.

Reinvigorated by his new mission in life, "Make Konoha Suck It", Naruto set to work freeing himself. Thirty minutes later, Naruto set out resolutely to begin working on his new goal. He got all of five steps before he realized he had no idea how to get started, a massive improvement over the quarter mile and fifty "Dattebayo's" it normally would have taken. Deflating like a balloon, Naruto fell limply to the ground and against odds the boys over in statistics would have placed at two and one-third miracles, he began to think, seriously think, for the second time that day.

"Okay, how do I get stronger? Let's see, Iruka-sensei said something about this once I think. It was something like the basic building blocks of a good shinobi are a strong body, a sharp mind, let's see, oh yeah big chakra reserves and um, oh yeah, good chakra control. So what do I have? I'm slower than a lot of the guys in my class were, but I was one of the stronger ones. Of course, I hardly ever hit anyone so I guess my taijutsu form needs work. I sucked at book work so I guess my mind needs work. I've never run out of chakra so my reserves are probably good for now, but I never was able to do that leaf floating trick Iruka-sensei showed us. So I need to work on my speed, my taijutsu form, my mind, and my chakra control. Man, I really suck.' Ladies and gentlemen do not be alarmed, the apocalypse is not occurring, I repeat the apocalypse is not occurring.

'How am I even going to fix all this? I've got the leaf thing for my control but I've got no idea what I'm going to do for speed and form 'cause my normal training sure ain't working. And how am I going to work on my mind anyway? I've got no idea what to do except, ah no, I can't do that. It would suck so much and they'll probably throw me right out and I don't really have any choice do I? Fuck damn it.'

For any who might be confused by the inner dialogue, Naruto has just remembered a conversation he had overheard once. A girl had asked Sakura how she got so smart. The pinkette had told the girl, Yuri-something or other, that she spent a lot of time reading about things that were coming up in class or had only been glanced over quickly. Ino had then interjected with a bookworm comment and the third cat fight of the day had started.6 The important thing, however, was that Sakura had gained much of her knowledge from the library, which meant Naruto would have to go there himself. He had never been inside before, but he got the feeling that the place was going to be boring as hell. Heaving a sigh that spoke of great personal suffering, Naruto climbed to his feet and trudged off towards his apartment.

* * *

"Today officially sucks. That makes 14 plus years straight now." Such were the thoughts of Uzumaki Naruto as he meandered his way through the streets of Konoha after his first day as a shinobi in the service of the village. Today, after waking up early to wait three hours for his sensei in the company of two people who hated him and who he wasn't too overly fond of, he had served his village by weeding some old biddy's garden. An old biddy who had criticized him while she damn near stuffed cookies and tea down Sasuke and Sakura's throats. So yeah, not a good day by any measure. The only good thing about this day was the fact that it fanned the flames of Naruto's rage and hatred back into a towering inferno and insuring he went through with his plan with yesterday, which at this point consisted of

Step 1: Go to library

Step 2: Learn how to get stronger

Step 3: Get stronger

Step 4: Make Konoha suck it

It may not have been the most inspired plan but it was his plan and he was sticking with it. Naruto is just loyal like that. So now our young hero is making his way to the Konoha Library in order to gain the knowledge required to learn the skills needed to force much sucking upon Konoha.7 Bracing himself for the mind numbing horrors before him, our young hero bravely opened the door and entered the Konoha Library. He was promptly hurled back through the door and into the street a few moments later followed by several blank scrolls, a stapler, a few paper weights, and a handful of letter openers. Picking himself up, the young shinobi returned fire with the most imaginative curses in his repertoire, which outstripped most sailors by at least an order of magnitude. Unfortunately, so caught up was he in his ranting, he failed to see the rather heavy tome flying through the air and directly into his face. Recovering from the shock of the hit, Naruto grabbed the book and prepared to take out a window with it when he happened to notice the title "Shinobi Basics" printed on the front.8 Willing to accept whatever victory he could manage at this point, Naruto took his prize and ran back to his apartment before the librarians figured out they had actually thrown something of worth at him. Pausing a second, he performed a quick seal and with a shout of "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu" formed a few clones to grab up the rest of the supplies, because as far as the young street urchin was concerned free stuff was free stuff.

Once he was safely back at his apartment, Naruto dismissed his clones, flopped down on his beat up couch, and opened his prize to the table of contents.

"Alright, let's see physical conditioning, chakra control and expansion techniques, basic strategy, use of tools, basic seals, survival basics, basics of stealth, and seduction. Wait, **SEDUCTION?!?** What the hell would I need that for?" Deciding to answer his own question before anything else, Naruto flipped to the back of the book and began reading. This position did not change until half an hour and about fifty pages later, when the now blushing boy made a discovery, reading was actually alright. Sure it didn't measure up to actually going out and doing things, but it was still nowhere near as bad as he had suspected. He wondered why all the other kids in his academy class had been so against it. He then figured it was some scheme to keep him stupid and weak they had all concocted.9 But such things were unimportant at this point. No, all that mattered right now was devouring the knowledge before him. With an evil cackle that would have made Orochimaru request a paternity test, our hero dived back into his book, starting from the introduction and not stopping until he had finished seduction a second time.10

Several hours later, Naruto laid the book down and stretched his rather stiff joints. Finally achieving a series of rather satisfying cracks, the young Jinchuriki made his way to the kitchen to begin preparing his dinner, seven bowls of ramen in varying flavors. As he ran the somewhat murky tap water into the sole pot he owned for boiling water for instant ramen, the young blond made a list of everything he had found in the book. 'Okay, there weren't any taijutsu styles but now I at least know how to bring my speed up, but I need to look into this "nutrition" crap it was talking about. Aw hell, who am I kidding, if it'd make me taller I'd dress like Sasuke. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far but still. Anyways, what else? Oh yeah, chakra control, that's right. Man it's gonna be so cool to walk on water. I bet Sasuke doesn't know how to do that… which means Kakashi will probably teach him just as soon as he finds out I can do it, damn. Fine then, I'll just hide how awesome I become 'til I know for sure I can beat down Sasuke. Alright, what else, I already knew that stealth stuff and all I got from survival was what mushrooms are safe to eat. That tool stuff looked cool but there all pretty expensive. Seduction was… hehehe. Oh yeah, there was all that strategy stuff but that just looked like planning pranks to me. No techniques though and that's what I really need if I want to kick Sasuke's emo ass.'

Naruto pondered over where he could get his hands on some kick ass techniques to beat Sasuke into the ground with as he set the water on to boil. He knew he wouldn't be able to return to the library, unless… 'I could always just break into the place, the book had some good strategies on infiltration and that's pretty much what this will be. It's gonna be a real pain dodging the patrols long enough to actually find anything in there. Hell, it'd probably be just as easy to sneak into Oji's office and steal the scroll again.' It took all of five seconds for this thought to really register in Naruto's head. After twenty minutes of planning and an encore of evil cackling, Naruto set off into the night.

* * *

It was another late night for Sarutobi Hiruzen, third Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The aged Hokage worked tirelessly against his greatest foe, nay, the greatest foe of any Kage, paperwork. It was one of the most tedious parts of the job and also what a Kage spent most of their time doing. Heaving a sigh of utmost boredom, the old man paused momentarily in his seemingly never ending task. A moment later he heard a knock at his door.

"Enter." Upon receiving the permission, the door opened to reveal the Hokage's personal secretary. "Ah, Nanoa-chan I thought you had already left for the night.

"No Hokage-sama, I had a few things to take care of from the new genin teams," replied the rather "healthy" looking brunette. "Actually, I just finished up and came to check on you before I went home for the night."

"Ah, that's very kind of you Nanao-chan, but as you can see I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me tonight," Sarutobi said while motioning towards the piles of paperwork.

"Poor Hokage-sama," Nanao cooed as she moved further into the room. "You always have so much work to do; I don't think I've ever seen you relax."

"Y-Yes well, the Hokage's work is never done," the old man stuttered out while his secretary worked her way slowly, evenly sensually, towards him.

"You do so much for this village and yet no one ever does anything for you," she said as she slinked around the Hokage's massive desk. "I think it's about time someone did something for you," she was in his lap now "something to relieve all that tension," she purred. Then she breathed into his ear, "Show me your "chakra reserves" Big Daddy Saru." And that was it; the old Hokage suffered an S-class nosebleed and was out cold. Smirking, "Nanao" dropped the henge to reveal Naruto in full prank master mode. Quickly summoning a dozen Kage Bunshin, Naruto started issuing orders.

"Okay, you two clean up the old man and make it look like he just dozed off," he ordered. "Don't forget to get in his desk and get his copy of Icha Icha Paradise out, I want to make it look like he dozed off while reading it. The rest of you start copying the scroll."

The clones paused for a second before one of them asked, "What are we supposed to copy it onto?"

Pulling a scroll out of his pocket, Naruto tossed it to one of his clones saying, "Sorry about that. Here, the spare scrolls are in here." Unsealing the scrolls, the clones got to work. Pulling the Scroll of Forbidden Seals from its place, the unrolled it and began copying, a clone every few feet. While the rest of the clones were copying, the two setting up the scene had found something interesting.

"Huh, why does shibari sound familiar," queried one clone as he pulled out "The Comprehensive Guide to Shibari"?

"Who knows, we might as well take it though, there's so much dust on it I doubt the old man even remembers he has it," was his colleagues reply.

In short order, the clones had copied the scroll in its entirety. Taking stock of things, Naruto saw that they had used barely half of the scrolls he had brought and they still had a few hours before they needed to clear out. It was odd, as long as he didn't take the Forbidden Scroll out of this room and the old Hokage didn't wake up, no one would know he had been there and no one would check until the secretary came in in the morning. He also happened to notice a number of scrolls in a case off to the side. "Well, not like we have anything else to do. OK guys, everyone grab something that looks good and let's get to work." As the thirteen of them grabbed a scroll to copy, Naruto couldn't help but think of the wealth of knowledge and power he'd have after tonight. 'What a haul, what a haul.'

* * *

AN: This is my first try at this so any feedback would be appreciated.

1. Team here meaning "A group of backstabbing bastards who wouldn't piss on you if you caught fire."

2. Training being defined as watching Sasuke and Kakashi spar while being told he wasn't ready for any kind of training yet.

3. Of all the decisions he made before or hereafter, this was the best.

4. The duly appointed ruler of Emoland, where the rivers and lakes were filled with the black tears of the broken hearted (and the useless and dickless), and you can cut your wrists with a feather.

5. See folks, he really isn't that dense and oblivious, he was just deluding himself.

6. Too bad this isn't a high school fic or that would have been something to see… er read.

7. Yeah this is one of those plans that doesn't sound better no matter how many times you say it.

8. What can I say, Benten loves the kid. And I was too lazy to write a library scene.9.

9. Hate can make you more paranoid than all the pot needed to run Woodstock for two days.

10. Seduction had some very interesting diagrams and examples.


	2. It Continues

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, so thanks for not sending the lawyers. Just for that, you may has cheezburger, if you can get it away from the Nibi, that is.

Talking: "When will this day end?"

Thinking: 'Urge to kill, rising.'

* * *

Today was a good day to be Uzumaki Naruto. In fact, it was the first good day to be Uzumaki Naruto ever, which just made it all the better for the blond in question. Having successfully copied not only the Scroll of Forbidden Seals but several books from the Hokage's personal stash, the young shinobi would no doubt have all the techniques he could want, at least for the foreseeable future. Best of all, it was Saturday. Now you might wonder why it being Saturday would matter at all since Naruto had already graduated from the Shinobi Academy. Surely ninjas didn't take weekends off from serving their village. Well, they do, at least those under Kakashi's command did anyway. In fact, it had been one of the first things he had told them when he was laying out the team's training schedule. He had of course spouted some bullshit about how the "young people should not have their childhoods ripped away from them" but everyone down to the sparrow in a nearby tree could tell that the man just wanted to avoid doing any work that he possibly could. 'Bet the bastard is training Sasuke right now, teaching him tons of jutsu so the bastard can rub them in my face later,' was Naruto's thoughts on the subject.1 But such things are unimportant compared to a few simple truths, those being: Naruto had a ton of techniques to learn and all weekend to study them. So, grabbing the scroll that had the first part of the Scroll of Forbidden Seals, he opened it up, flopped onto his much abused couch, and began to read.

'Alright this is Kage Bunshin no Jutsu so what's next. Huh, I didn't see this part before, wonder what it is.' It was in fact a warning, containing the reasons that the jutsu had originally been placed in the scroll. 'Huh, chakra drain? I guess if you made a couple hundred at once, but wait, this says three or four. Three or Four!! For a Jonin! Whoa, I must have more chakra than the old man! And now that I have some techniques I'll be able to show up Sasuke for sure. Man I can't wait to see how people look at me when I whip his ass all the way to Cloud.2 Wait, why is there more? "Dispelling multiple clones can cause mental backlash from the memories gained from all the clones"? Memories, what memories?' Scanning through the description for the Kage Bunshin, Naruto soon found the alternate use for the jutsu. '"When dispelled, the memories of what a Kage Bunshin did during its existence will be transmitted back to the caster." So whatever my Kage Bunshin learn, I learn?' Cue the evil smile and the mad cackling, Naruto has just had a fit of brilliance.3 One Kage Bunshin later and every one of the scrolls was in the hands of a Naruto, each engrossed in his own little world. So absorbed were they that not a single one remembered the scroll's warning when they all dispersed at once several hours later. For one brief moment, Naruto felt as if he knew all, as if all the knowledge in the universe was at his command. Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he knew no more, even as a small trickle of blood came from his left nostril.4

* * *

"Ugh, what happened?" was the blonde's first question upon waking up. Looking around, he saw not his apartment but a sewer. At least, he thought it was a sewer. There was no water anyways, except for a low lying fog that made it impossible to see the floor. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear out the fuzziness he felt, the young shinobi followed his training and began looking for an exit. One way seemed to lead into pitch black darkness, and the other had a faint red glow to it. After debating the merits of both, he finally had to concede that even his night vision (demon enhanced as it was) didn't work in pitch black and headed towards the light, as an enemy you can see is a lot better than one you can't. As he walked towards the light, the air grew warm and moist, and he thought he could hear the sound of something pumping air like a bellows. Finally, after a time he couldn't rightly guess at, he saw a doorway leading into a large chamber. Stepping in he realized that simply calling it large was an insult; this one room was probably big enough that half of Konoha's main market could fit in it with room left over for an onsen. And that was what he could see of it, because some ways in there was a row of bars that stretched up from the floor to the unseen ceiling, a spell tag with the kanji for "seal" placed on the center bar. It looked like a giant cell or cage, and beyond it was…

"No fucking way," the amazed blonde breathed out. Because beyond the bars lay the form of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, Greatest of the Bijuu, strongest demon in all the depths of hell, and the cause of Konoha's near destruction, which had only been kept from being total when the Yondaime had sealed the beast into an infant. The beast lay there behind the seal that kept him bound, appearing to be asleep, its breathing producing the sound Naruto had heard earlier Somewhat stunned, the only thing Naruto could think to say was, "Huh, so this is what I look like on the inside."

"Yes, at least, this is what your pathetic little ningen mind looks like," came the unexpected reply, in a voice that sounded too much like an animal's growl to ever be human.

"Oh come on, really? This had better not be because of my Orioke no Jutsu, because there are tons of pervs in this town and I bet none of their… minds… look… like… this." As you can see, Naruto has just realized that there was only one possible being that could have replied to his last statement. Looking up the now rather frightened blonde saw the greatest of all demons looking down upon him.

"Actually, this place was formed both as a response to all the suffering you have been dealt by those idiotic villagers and to represent your lack of any sort of real knowledge," was the demon's almost, **polite,** reply.

"Huh, so all of this is because I had a shitty life and was pretty much dumb as a brick up to now?" queried the blond. Getting a nod from the fox, the blond started grumbling about just how much the villagers had screwed him over when something occurred to him. Looking up at the fox, he queried, "Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but why aren't you trying to, I don't know, eat me or trick me into letting you go or something." Instead of being offended as he had feared, the fox began to chuckle.

"Little mortal, do you know where this fog came from?" the fox asked. Seeing its jailer shaking his head, the fox continued, "Originally all the hallways in this place were filled with water. This water represented all the misery and sorrow you kept hidden away from the world behind that fool's mask you wore. However, a few days ago the water evaporated and formed this fog. Do you know what caused that little man? It was your anger. Even now you continue to stoke its flames into a grand inferno, the fact that the heat has yet to stop rising is testament enough to that."

Blinking at the rather articulate demon before him, Naruto asked, "What's that got to do with you being in a good mood?" Again, his answer was laughter.

"I sometimes forget just how little you pathetic ningen actually know. I am pleased because I am a demon, and the greatest of the Bijuu. We are not creatures of flesh and blood. We are calamity given form, born of the darkness of the human heart. This anger of yours and your growing hate, they are the very things my kind was born of. Not to mention you have finally dropped that ridiculous mask of yours. Yes, now you seek power, not to protect those who have abused you but to make them fear you. You have finally begun to act like the demon they see you as and as a worthy vessel for my power.

That stunned the blonde; he hadn't realized just how much he had changed in the last few days. But, he couldn't find any fault in the fox's account of the last few days. He really did want power, hell he craved it like a blind man craves the light of day. He did want the villagers to fear him, just like he had feared them all these years. He wanted them to know what it was like to know there was a sword hanging right over their neck, unable to do anything but helplessly wait for it to drop. Shaking himself to stop the building spiral of hate, Naruto turned back to the fox and asked, "So why exactly am I here?" This time the fox's laughter started to grate on his nerves just a little.

"Because my vessel, you fried your little monkey brain dispelling all those clones. Were it not for me you would most assuredly be dead." Hearing this and remembering the warning in the scroll, Naruto couldn't help a sheepish grin from spreading across his face.

"Uh, thanks Kyuubi I guess I owe you one." When the fox started staring rather intently at his jailer it actually made Naruto wish he was being laughed at again. Finally, the fox spoke.

"You owe me nothing, if you die I die. However, there is a matter I wish to discuss with you mortal. You are in need of power. I have power in spades but no purpose to put it towards, save keeping our souls on this plane. It seems to me that we should be able to reach an accord that will be beneficial to the both of us." Of course, knowing quite a bit about demons and their deals, foxes in particular, Naruto was instantly suspicious.

Schooling his face into a mask of indifference, he asked the fox, "Oh, and just what kind of deal might that be Kyuubi."

Grinning from one absurdly long ear to the other, the fox laid out his proposal. "Within that scroll you stole from the old monkey, there was a technique that could be used to force a body into its peak physical condition. If you search your memories you will find it easily enough." The strange thing was, he did remember the technique, one whose amazing results were countered by the ease with which the technique could be botched and kill the user. Keeping this in mind, Naruto nodded for his prisoner to continue. "As you no doubt recall, the technique works by tearing your body down and regrowing it bit by bit into its ideal form via chakra stimulation of cellular growth undoing any and all damage done to it and allowing the user's body to reach the full potential of its growth was meant to, no matter what sort of damage or deficiencies were originally blocking it. Normally, this would be dangerous to the point of suicide and shave several years off your life. However, I am tied into your chakra system and would be able to perform the technique with ease. Of course, why merely take your body to its limits when you can shatter them. My youki can remove those disgusting human limitations and allow you to become stronger than any of those filthy ningen in your village. Your senses will be sharper, your body more resilient, and your regeneration will increase to the point of near immortality. So, what say you little ninja?"

Having become somewhat used to a giant talking fox, Naruto was able to shake off the flowery words and ask the most important question in any negotiation. Looking the demon square in the eye, he said, "Exactly what do you get out of this then?" The demon's laugh made a triumphant return, making Naruto realize that the earlier stare really wasn't all that bad.

Getting itself under control, the Kyuubi said, "Very good little man, very good indeed. Up until now, I have had no awareness of anything outside this cage. When you began to let your anger consume you, we began to harmonize, and I was able to gain some access to your memories. If I perform these changes, we will be permanently harmonized to an even greater level. It won't be enough for me to influence you or even speak with you outside of this space, but I will be able to feel again. That is the basis of this whole deal. I will grant you the power to stand on your own two feet and rise above all those who have filled your life with pain and misery. In exchange, I will be able to feel again, but I do not wish to feel just any little sensation. No mortal, I want to feel the thrill of the hunt, I want to feel the fear of prey just before they meet their end, to see the light in their eyes fade into the darkness of their eternal repose. Little man, if you will go forth and slaughter all who dare stand in your way, if you will swear to kill and kill and kill until you have stained the earth and the heavens forever crimson, then I will give you the strength to do it."

Now it was Naruto's turn to laugh. It rang through the seal chamber, the laugh of a man who had just had his greatest wish handed to him, the laugh of a slave set loose to take vengeance on his master. It was a booming laugh, dark and triumphant with just the barest hints of madness, echoing not only in the room but within the mind and memory of any who hear it. For most it would have been unsettling to the extreme, so it was only natural that the Kyuubi grinned as it bounced off of the walls. When he managed to control his mirth, Naruto looked up at the fox and said, "So, you will give me power, power to have vengeance and put the fear of Kami, no, the fear of Satan, in the villagers, and all I have to do is swear to you that I will slaughter all who stand in my way?" Seeing the fox nod, he nearly broke into laughter again. "I knew there was a reason I became a shinobi. Very well Kyuubi no Kitsune, Greatest of the Bijuu, I will accept your terms, if you will accept one of mine."

Looking somewhat annoyed, the Kyuubi asked, "And just what would you demand of me, little mortal?"

Smirking, Naruto explained, "That's just the thing Kyuubi, this whole time I've addressed you respectfully, yet you have not returned the favor to me. If we are to deal then we shall do it as equals. I will accept your terms in full if you will call me by my name."

Hearing that, a bemused smirk spread across the demon's face. "Very well then, Uzumaki Naruto, it seems we have an accord." As soon as the Kyuubi uttered the last syllable, an ocean of crimson power surged forth from behind the gate. Naruto stood transfixed in awe as he was swept away by the tide.

* * *

"Oh my fucking…everything," was the first thought Naruto had as he awoke, and so profound was it that he felt it needed to be vocalized. The next thing he became aware of was the fact that it wasn't him that had said that. At least, it hadn't sounded like him. Slowly getting to his feet, he stumbled towards his bathroom, bracing himself on the furniture and walls as he went. 'Oh Kami, what the hell did the fox do to me? I can't find a single place on my body that doesn't feel stretched, bunched, or both. I didn't even know it was possible to feel that.'

Finally reaching the bathroom, he noted that the door frame seemed lower. Stepping in and up to the mirror, he saw the changes the Kyuubi's youki had wrought on his body. First was the height, he had easily grown half a foot. If it hadn't been for the pain he would have been doing cartwheels through his apartment. The next thing that caught his attention was his face. It had thinned greatly and the birthmarks on his cheeks looked different, they were thinner and longer, they had darkened somewhat and had gained a slight curve. All in all, they looked like some of the markings he'd seen some clans had. As he reached a hand up to trace them, he saw that the changes had been definitely been more than cosmetic. On the end of each finger he had claws, each more than an inch long. Testing the claws on the palm of his palm he saw that they would be more than able to pierce flesh and not even the pain he felt could stop the grin that spread across his face as he actually watched the wound close up without leaving the barest hint of a scar. The grin abruptly faded and was replaced with a headache once he realized just how demonic he looked no and just what the villagers were likely to do once they saw him. Placing a hand on his face, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths as he tried to ward off the headache. This seemed to work, until he opened his eyes and looked right at them, finally noticing the slit pupils he now had. Feeling too disgusted to deal with anything else, he turned and headed to his bedroom. He collapsed on his bed and was out like a light not even two seconds later.

The sun rose on another beautiful day in Konoha, and with it our young hero. Do to the wonders of demon powered regeneration the pain from yesterday was long gone. Now as he stood in his room, basking in the early morning sun, he felt ready to finally get started with his training. Walking over to his closet, he began rummaging around for something to wear. After five shirts and three pairs of pants, he realized that he had a bit of a problem. While he did love the fact that he was taller now, he realized that he did not own a single bit of clothing that fit anymore. "Well this is jus ow!" Having bitten his tongue, the young jinchuriki began cussing up a storm, biting his tongue three more times in the process. After the third time, he realized he was getting nowhere and, on a hunch, began feeling around his mouth with his tongue. It didn't take him long to find the set of fangs he now sported. 'I have fangs now, of course I have fangs. I've got claws and slit pupils, why wouldn't I have fangs.' Feeling disgusted with how long it took him to realize he had fangs, Naruto couldn't help the impulse to face palm.

After a minute or so of coming to grips with his new look, the weary blonde sighed and ran his hand back through his hair. And discovered that it now reached his shoulders. Fighting the urge to scream down, Naruto returned his attention to his most pressing problem, how was he going to get some new clothes? The merchants barely tolerated him before and that was only because they could over charge him. Now though, he'd be lucky if he didn't get run out of town walking into the market looking like he did.

'Ugh, what am I gonna do, even if I use a henge, there are so many ninja in the market that someone is bound to sense it and dispel it. I'd bet the damn bastards just sit around all day hoping I use a henge to keep from getting cheated.5 Wait, didn't I go to a store somewhere else once? Oh yeah, that old guy's shop. Damn it, first the library and now that old bastard's place. What next, starting the academy over from the beginning?' It took a moment, but then the young ninja realized that he had just tempted fate. "Oh sweet Kami, I swear I didn't just think that, please oh great Murphy, please don't send me back to the academy?" While Naruto begs the almighty Murphy to spare his wretched soul, let us examine why Naruto is against returning to the out of the way store he recalled visiting in his youth.

_Flashback _

_A seven year old Uzumaki Naruto was on his way to a residential area that housed mainly retirees, looking for a shop he'd over heard a couple of chunin talking about in the market. They had said that the old man who ran the shop was a weapon smith of some skill and renown, almost equal to the smiths of Mizugakure. Of course, Naruto had no idea where or what Mizugakure was nor did he have any idea if their smiths were any good or not, but he had overheard the ninja mention the old man could make chakra weapons, a term he was familiar with, due mainly to his obsession with being Hokage. He had learned of chakra weapons when someone in his academy class had asked how the Nidaime was as good a ninja as his brother the Shodaime, even though he didn't posses the Mokuton Kekkei Genkai. The teacher, a man who had barely scraped the chunin rank and was a firm believer of the Uchiha theory of being a ninja, 6 had replied, "Because he had a powerful chakra weapon." Of course, once he learned there was a way for him to become as special as Sasuke, Naruto had set out to gain his own chakra weapon. Now he finally could get one of his very own. At least that was the thought that had led Naruto to the old smith's shop, and of course, Naruto being Naruto, he had put one foot through the door and demanded the old man at the shop's counter drop whatever he was doing and make a chakra weapon for the future Hokage. For his efforts, he had been driven to the end of the block by an assortment of stabbity implements of death. Half an hour of sulking and a few bowls of ramen later and the boy had forgotten the event and merely placed finding a chakra weapon on the back burner._

_Back to the Future_7

* * *

We rejoin our hero, wait, is he still a hero? I mean, he did swear to kill and slaughter in the name of a centuries old demon in exchange for power, not very heroic behavior by any stretch of the imagination. Then again, it was pretty bad ass, you can't deny that. Ah what the hell, I'll split the difference. We rejoin our protagonist as he makes his way, still somewhat reluctantly, to the old smith's shop. After begging Murphy's forgiveness, he had found a pair of orange shorts that still fit somewhat, though they only came to the top of his knees. He was currently under a henge that removed his more demonic features and turned his hair and eyes brown and made him appear to be wearing a plain white T-shirt and some blue cargo shorts. All that remained of his base form were his dimensions and his hitaite. He looked like just another ninja wannabe going to find some cool signature gear as he trudged up to the shop's front door. Stopping in front of the store to gather his courage8, he took a good look at the store front. It was a bit weathered looking, definitely could use a new coat of paint, with a large bay window where sat a mannequin in ANBU-esque armor. There was old sign over the door adorned with the crossed sword symbol all weapon shops in Hi no Kuni bore and proclaiming the place to be the "Gilgamesh Armory". Having finally collected his nerve, Naruto opened the door and stepped inside.

As he entered, a bell over the door rang and the old man's voice came from the back saying, "Be with you in just a minute." As he waited for his doom9, the young shinobi took a minute to scan the shop's interior. It was well lit without being bright, and the whole place reeked of steel and oil, at least it did to his rather sensitive nose. To his left was a counter with a cash register on top, the middle was a display case for various tags and other mass produced seals. Behind the counter was a pair of bookcases and a door the old man's voice had come from. Directly across from him, there were three doorways with curtains screening from the main room, dressing rooms he guessed. Starting to his right and running along the wall up to the back wall was a display case holding kunai, shuriken, and other such small weapons. Above this was an assortment of swords, pole arms, and several other types of weapons hanging on the wall. The main floor was covered by several clothing racks with a large assortment of different types of shinobi apparel. Naruto was shocked out his observation of the merchandise by a rather gruff voice saying, "So what can I do you for today, boyo?"

Naruto jumped a bit and turned to look at the old man, a man of a rather average build and a somewhat weathered look to match his shop, who had grey hair cut short in a crew cut and brown eyes, surrounded by equal parts laugh and stress lines, who immediately started glaring upon catching a look at Naruto's face. Reaching for what was undoubtedly a great deal of stabbity death, the old man barked out, "Give it up now, kid, and I won't have to hurt you." Naruto, afraid for his life at this point, dropped the henge immediately. As the smoke cleared, the old man took in the demon vessel's much changed appearance and visibly relaxed. "Ah, it's you, boyo. You've sure done a number on yourself, though I must admit you look mighty fearsome now. So, what brings you here, come for your chakra weapon, have you?" the old man asked before breaking off into a raspy sort of chuckle.

Naruto, now long passed stunned and growing steadily closer to freaked the fuck out, merely gestured at his exposed torso and said, "I need some new clothes, the old ones don't fit anymore."

The old man chuckled again and said, "I should say not, not with that growth spurt of yours. I take it you'll be needing a whole new wardrobe, then?" Getting a nod from the thoroughly freaked out blonde he continued as he moved out from behind the counter, "Well then, seeing as how I ended our last meeting a tad rudely, I'll give you a discount on whatever you buy today. So, any preferences?"

It took a moment to recognize it, but Naruto realized he was in a situation he had only ever dreamed of. Eyes holding a small spark of hope, he looked at the old man and asked, "Are you…apologizing to me?"

Chuckling again, he said, "Yeah, I am. You came in on a really bad day. I'd had to listen to the same shit from a bunch of chunin with delusions of grandeur all day. When you came in I snapped just a wee bit. Of course, I had no right to take out my frustrations on a young buck like you, which is why I'm giving you a discount. Now, do you happen to have any preferences?"

Stunned once again, but this time in a good way, Naruto replied, "I'd like something easy to move in and hide weapons on, good for stealth, and with some orange if you've got it, uh…"

"Ah sorry lad, the names Soujiro," the old man, Soujiro, introduced himself as he began looking through a clothing rack back towards the dressing rooms.

Remembering his manners10, the young blonde returned, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you."

Chuckling once again as he made his way back to his customer, Soujiro said, "I'm pretty sure everyone in this village knows you, boyo, but it's nice to meet you too. Now here try these one, they should be just about right," he said as he passed a bundle of clothes over to the blonde.

Naruto took the clothes and headed back to the changing rooms. Once he was in the changing room with the curtain drawn, he took a moment to examine what Soujiro had given him. First off was a pair of pants, they were black with an orange tiger stripe pattern. The orange itself was actually more a spectrum of the color, ranging from near yellow in the front to almost red in the back. To go with the pants was a plain black shirt, sleeveless, and somewhat tight, but not to the point of limiting the blonde shinobi's mobility. Finally, there was a cloak, the same pattern and color as the pants. It would stop just short of touching the ground when Naruto put it on, had wide sleeves that covered his hands easily, and sported a hood that had a pair of the stripes on either side, one about level with Naruto's cheek, the other his temple.11 Liking what he saw, he quickly slipped into the new outfit, leaving the cloak open, and stepped back out into the main store. Catching sight of him, Soujiro began clapping, embarrassing the young shinobi just a bit.

"Excellent, you look like a proper shinobi now, or maybe some sort of demon lord. So boyo, what do you think of it, does it fit all your requirements?"

Naruto paused a moment in thought, then said, "Well, I can move pretty well in it, this cloak is gonna be great for hiding stuff, and the pattern's just fucking awesome, but I really can't see how it'd be any good for stealth."

Smirking a bit, Soujiro asked his doubtful customer, "Tell me boyo, have you ever seen a tiger?" Getting a nod, he continued with, "Do you know why their fur is the color and pattern it is?" Getting a response to the negative, the old smith explained. "Well you see, boyo, the pattern of a tigers fur is the way it is to help it hide in tall grass and undergrowth in forests. The orange and the black blend in with the kind of patchy sunlight you get in those kinds of places. The pattern your sportin' will accomplish the same, should even stand up to a quick once over in places like Tsuchi no Kuni."

Having been enlightened to the sheer potential of his new threads, Naruto had only one choice. "I'll take it, and any more you have." This turned out to be another five pairs of pants in the tiger pattern, as well as three pairs in plain black added on Soujiro's recommendation as workout clothes, and Naruto, being Naruto and having met a villager who actually liked him, was ready to take anything Soujiro said as gospel. This also led to Naruto picking up a dozen of the black shirts, because Soujiro mentioned that young men, especially young shinobi, have a way of destroying shirts at an incredible pace. Once they had gotten everything up to the counter, but before Soujiro had rung it all up, he decided to give Naruto another deal.

"Well boyo, since you're buying so much off of me, how's about I customize that cloak of yours. I can add your clan symbol or any other little add-ons you might want. Free of charge of course."

Thinking for a second, the young shinobi asked, "Could you add some storage seals to the inside of the sleeves?"

"Sure, four sound about right to you boyo?"

"Yeah, sounds great. And come to think of it, there is a symbol I'd like to have added on the back if you could."

"Sure sure, just sketch it out for me real quick and I'll take care of it," Soujiro said, passing a pencil and a piece of paper to Naruto. The blonde scratched out a quick drawing and handed it to the old man, who couldn't help the smirk spreading across his face at the sight of it. "Right then, take just a moment to do, feel free to take a look at whatever you like while I'm in the back."

As the smith took the cloak back into his domain, Naruto wasted no time in scanning through the books the old man had behind the counter. Several of them were the intermediate and truly practical applications of the things he'd read in the semi stolen library book from, was it just a few days ago? It had much longer to him. Discarding such thoughts in favor of the treasure trove in front of him, the knowledge hungry grabbed a book about kenjutsu off the shelf and began reading. And that is how Soujiro found him, half an hour later when he finished the cloak.

Deciding to have a bit of fun with the boy, the old man got right behind him and said, "Those are for sale you know." Naruto jumped three feet in the air, and was about to cuss the old man 'til a fly wouldn't light upon him, until what the shopkeeper had said registered and he began grabbing books off of shelves at a fevered pitch. Laughing, both from his little prank and the blonde's apparent obsession with knowledge, Soujiro grabbed his wrist, saying, "Whoa there boyo, you don't need to get everything today, I get new shipments all the time. Just tell me what you're working on right now and I'll get you what you need."

Naruto, pouting a bit at not getting more of his precious12, took a moment to sum up his current plans, the told his new friend, "Well, I'm going to be working on my chakra control but I've already got stuff for that. I'd like to know a little bit about sealing because I read about some of the stuff you can do with it but nothing I've read has said how to make them. Also, if you have anything on training elemental natures that'd be great. Oh, and if you have a taijutsu style you think would suit me then toss that in too."

This list actually left Soujiro gaping for a moment. After recovering, he asked, "And just how do you propose to find the time in the day to study all of that, boyo?"

Naruto's answer was short, sweet, and to the point. "Kage Bunshin."

Blinking a bit, Soujiro just shrugged and told him, "Well just remember, you have to practice the taijutsu yourself to develop muscle memory and conditioning, and it would be best if you ran through any chakra control exercises your clones have done after they pop, so as to make them a reflex," as he grabbed books on the subjects the boy had requested.

"Oh yeah, could you toss in that kenjutsu book I was reading and a roll of ninja wire?" the young blonde queried.

"Sure, sure, but you might as well just get a full kit of equipment. I'll round it all up while you go over to that barrel in the corner and get a practice sword," was the old smith's reply. Hearing his young friend give an affirmative and move towards the mentioned barrel, Soujiro went about getting the shinobi in training a full kit of kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, explosive tags, a few storage scrolls, a guide for making some simple traps from scratch, and a kit for making poisons and a guide to go with it. After the blonde came back with a practice sword in hand, he looked at all that the old shop keep had to the now rather large pile.

Finding the book with the taijutsu style he flipped through it a bit, and then let his opinion be know. "The author sure does have a weird name. Is he foreign?"

"Aye, he was, something of a wander warrior, he came to this land to make a living as a bounty hunter. The style is all about being loose and fluid like water, and more than a little unpredictable.13 Sounded like something that'd be right up your alley." Grinning at the old man, Naruto set the book back on the counter and Soujiro rang him up. "All right boyo, with the discount that'll be 680 ryou." Seeing the blonde's mouth hanging open, the old man was about to get out his ledger to start his young friend a tab when the blonde exploded.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Soujiro was about to try and calm him down but soon realized it wasn't his prices that had the blonde so distressed. "Those fucking rat bastards! I knew those sons of bitches were over charging me! I'd have been lucky to get the kunai and shuriken for that price in the market, much less the clothes!"

For not the first time, Soujiro felt disgusted of his own people. However, him getting angry would not help the young man in front of him, so he said, "Well looks like I can be expecting repeat business then." This caught Naruto so off guard that he couldn't help but laugh, soon followed by his new friend. After their laughter subsided, he paid for his stuff and thanked the old man. As he was halfway out the door, Soujiro told him, "Feel free to stop in any time you feel like chatting."

Turning back with a smile on his face, the blonde said, "Thanks, I'll be sure to take you up on that offer." As the blonde turned and left, the old man couldn't help a smirk at the sight of the crest on the young shinobi's back. Nine orange-red lines forming a spiral.

* * *

AN: Many thanks to all my readers and especially to all my reviewers. There should be one more chapter before the Wave arc gets under way. Unfortunately, I can't give any real time frame for updates. So please, read, review, and I'll get the chapters up as soon as possible.

1 Today's lesson was some advanced forms for the Uchiha clan's taijutsu style and a couple of Katon jutsus. Boy's getting damn near clairvoyant, isn't he?

2 For those of you wondering, it'd be with murder in their eyes.

3 Don't worry, he'll stop with the evil laugh once he gets used to them.

4 This actually had less to do with brain damage and more to do with the diagrams and explanations in the shibari guide.

5 Actually they do it in shifts. Until he graduated, there was damn near war over who got "fox hunting" duty on the day Naruto got his stipend from the village.

6 The theory states that there are three kinds of ninja in descending order: the Uchiha, other clans with bloodlines, and everybody else. This theory has the full backing of the Konoha civilian council.

7 Sorry, had to do it.

8 There is no shame in fearing an old man who threw not one but several swords longer than you are tall at you. At least, they were longer than Naruto was tall back when he was seven.

9 See #8

10 Actually, I'm just as surprised as you all are.

11 Yeah, it's Tobi's Akatsuki cloak with a different pattern. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

12 _The precious, we must has it._

13 If anyone can name the character that developed Naruto's new style and the show he's from, leave it in a review, and I will tell you what the pairing for this fic is.


	3. Training and an Asswhuppin'

Disclaimer: Really now, if I owned it do you think Naruto would have stopped using his hate.

Talking: "Total slaughter, total slaughter"

Thinking: 'I won't leave a single man alive'

* * *

It was a beautiful day in the Hidden Leaf, and the most beautiful girl in the whole village (at least in her own mind) was headed towards her team meeting with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. You may ask just what had put this girl in such a great mood. The answer is this, she had managed to become the first ninja in her family, was on the same team as her crush, Uchiha Sasuke, and that damn orange pest had finally stopped bugging her for a date. Yes, everything was going fine for Haruno Sakura on this day. Things were so good for her that she didn't even mind having to wait the usual three hours for her idiot, pervert sensei to show up. Not that she would ever say that out loud. No, that would be very unladylike, and she had to show her beloved Sasuke that she could be a perfect lady, one worthy of being the matriarch of the reborn Uchiha clan.1

Moving along, and out of this psycho-bitch's mind, Sakura was drawing close to the bridge her team always met at, planning just how she was going to get Sasuke's attention today, when she saw something that made her stop dead in her tracks. The thing was a person, a ninja if the kunai holster strapped to the thigh of his black pants were anything to go by, lying on his back on one of the bridge's rails, reading a small book he held in one hand. What stopped Sakura in her tracks, though, were his looks. He was tall, at least from her perspective, and looked a bit older than her. His hair was long and wild, his eyes fierce, his face sharp and aristocratic, the markings on his cheeks giving it a rugged, animalistic air.2 Shaking her head to remove her blasphemous questioning of Sasuke being the end all be all of hotness, Sakura walked up to the stranger to ask him to leave, politely of course.

"Excuse me, um, I'm sorry but this place is kind of reserved." When this managed to produce nothing from the stranger, she tried again. "Um, my team meets here about now to receive our orders from our sensei so ah…" she trailed off as the boy turned to give her a blank stare before returning to his book. Losing her patience a bit, Sakura tried once more, "Listen sir, this is my team's spot so if you'd…"

"I'm well aware that this is where we meet, Sakura." Hearing the stranger use her name gave Sakura pause, and as she looked at him, the color of his hair and eyes finally managed to register.

"N-naruto? Is that you? No, no way, you can't be Naruto; I mean your tall, and not wearing orange, and handsome." As soon as she said that, her eyes widened in horror. 'Damn it, now he'll probably ask me to marry him, and he had just stopped asking me out too.' Surprisingly, to Sakura anyway, she got no reaction at all from her blond teammate, save him turning a page in his book. This was enough to crash her OS once again, and she remained there, staring openmouthed at the herald of the apocalypse3 until Sasuke arrived.

The Uchiha took a moment to survey the situation before saying, "What the hell have you done to yourself, Dobe?"

Shifting an eye towards the Uchiha he said, "No idea, I collapsed on Friday, spent Saturday writhing in pain, and woke up yesterday looking like this. Far as I can tell, it's some kind of Kekkei Genkai, probably some bastardization of the Inuzuka bloodline."

The Uchiha took all this in, as well as the calm voice it was delivered in, and gave a simple nod and took his usual place leaning against the rail opposite Naruto. Throughout all of this, Sakura just continued to look from one teammate to the other. They remained in these positions for the two hours it took for Kakashi to arrive.

Looking around at his genin, the legendary Copy-nin could think of only one thing to say. "Okay guys, I think we need to have a little Q&A session before we begin today. First of all, what happened to Naruto?"

The blonde closed his book and with a put upon sigh that would have made Shikamaru proud, if such feelings weren't too troublesome to bother with anyway, replied, "Seems like I have a bloodline that decided to activate over the weekend. I've got the senses to go along with the animal look and my healing has shot through the roof. I think it's some kind of bastardized version of the Inuzuka bloodline, except I think my traits are from a fox since I'm slimmer than they usually are and I've been craving chicken since Suday.4"

Catching the hint and not liking where things were going, the scarecrow continued, "Alright, that's at least your new looks explained, so what's with the new clothes Naruto?"

Smirking, the blonde said, "You know I could be a real asshole right here and mention my new measurements but I'm not. I didn't have much to do on Saturday except lay on the ground and wish I was dead, so I ended up thinking about a lot of things and I came to the realization that really loud ninjas, wearing really bright colors, tend to end up really dead, really fast. Add to that the fact that I don't feel like I've got so much energy bottled up in me I'm going to explode anymore and you end up with a rather calm person."

As his blonde student spoke, Kakashi made sure to hold his gaze and he couldn't find any lies, nor did it seem like the blonde was being controlled. When all this came together and the jonin realized that another of his students had decided to take being a ninja seriously, he nearly broke out into a rendition of the happy dance. Fortunately he restrained himself, for dancing in public could be interpreted as being "youthful" and then Gai would never again shut the fuck up. So, while resolving in his head to get shit faced and pick up a pretty little chunin tonight, the overjoyed sensei continued his questioning. "Alright then, just remember that you can always come to me if you need some advice or guidance.5 By the way, what exactly are you reading there?"

Blinking, the young shinobi held up the book in question and said, "What this? This is just a basic primer on how to make and use poisons and how to develop immunities to them."

'Jackpot! He's actually showing initiative and practicality! I knew leaving him to his own devices would make him learn how to teach himself, but I thought I'd have to beat the worth of the basics into his brain with a damn boulder.6 That's genius 77, world 10.'7 What Kakashi actually said was, "Hmm, that's always useful for a ninja to know, just don't forget to build up an immunity to the recreational stuff like hallucinogens.8 You wouldn't believe how hard it is to fight an opponent who can't decide between being a purple dragon on roller skates and a demonic bunny-man.9" His students now sporting that "what the fuck" look he loved so much, he decided to wrap up the questioning and get on to today's training. "Alright now guys, time to fess up. Which one of you broke Sakura?"

* * *

Now some of you might be wondering just how the hell Naruto, having acquired so many techniques and manuals was able to content himself with just one. The answer is that he was not and would have gone homicidal if he had been deprived of all the opportunities to grow stronger those scrolls and manuals provided him for even a second. This is why a small army of clones had been practicing a good portion of them since shortly after Naruto left his apartment this morning. Unfortunately for the young ninja, most of the jutsu in the Forbidden Scroll were in there for moral reasons, mainly those involving respecting other people's souls and not making people's blood turn into a rather slow acting acid. A few however, were there only because they endangered the user's life, and hell what's life without some risk, right? This is why one group of clones was off to one side of the field the Naruto's had commandeered trying to hit ten targets with a single shuriken and liberal use of the Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, which was only slightly less draining than the original, and then only due to the difference in mass between humans and shuriken. The technique itself had taken about an hour for the first clone to perform, but after a further three the high score was still only seven targets, and that had not yet been duplicated.

In another part of the field, a single clone was busy making more clones and then making them explode. Bunshin Daibakuha had been ridiculously easy to pull off, possibly because of the naturally destructive nature of the youki in Naruto's system. This was lent credence when after achieving the optimal chakra to force conversion the jutsu was capable of the clone had continued to send his copies out to make more craters in the once pristine field, especially since the original clone felt every single explosion.

Past the edge of the field in the forest, another Naruto was working on a technique that was banned for political reasons. The technique was basically a rip off of the Jyuken, and not a very good one at that. The whole of the technique was simply shooting a spike of concentrated chakra out of the palm of a person's hand, resulting in basic kinetic force. The technique was fairly useless as you had to be holding on to whatever you were attacking or have it pinned to something for the attack to amount to anything more than a hard push. The Hyuuga, however, had never been told that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or were possibly embarrassed at how worthless the attack was, no one's sure, and had demanded it be forbidden before the creator had even managed to name it. Naruto was learning it simply because he thought it would be badass as hell to grab someone by the head and then blow the back out of it.10

Back in the field proper, a group of Naruto's had finished with the tree climbing exercise and had split in half, one group heading to a nearby stream to begin the water walking exercise while those that remained each picked up a leaf and began training the blonde's newly discovered wind affinity. The final group of Naruto's was studying the basics of seals, creating storage scrolls and paper bombs. And setting off a lot of those paper bombs, accompanied by a great deal of maniacal laughter.

The clones worked tirelessly, training until they're chakra ran dry or the stress of the training was enough to disperse them. They were joined by the original after a surprisingly good training session, the tree walking exercise, and another shitty D rank mission, catch the damn daimyo's damn wife's damn cat while his lazy damn teammates sat on their damn asses. Once he reached the field, he refreshed the ranks of clones with enough left over for him to have a battle royale to vent his frustrations and loosen up, followed by tai and kenjutsu katas, wrapping up with a review of the techniques his clones had learned once he dispersed them.

Due to the wonders of shadow clones, this training regiment managed to last for a week before Naruto was down to wind manipulation and clone free for alls. The lives of many clones were lost. They were then immediately replaced and promptly blown up to a chorus of mad cackling. This of course led to one of the most frightening things possible occurring. A bored Uzumaki Naruto began experimenting with his techniques and the rather large stockpile of explosive tags he had made. This led to the wondrous discoveries that Bunshin Daibakuha did in fact work with Shuriken Kage Bunshin, that a paper bomb folded into a paper shuriken and charged with wind chakra could sink itself into a tree and still detonate, and that with enough youki, Naruto was capable of regrowing a limb, almost instantaneously if he used enough. The last one was discovered at the same time as the maximum amount of wind chakra Naruto could enhance his claws with.

Now though, Naruto was fresh out of ideas. While his taijutsu skill was fast approaching parity with Sasuke's, his ability with a sword seemed to have stalled just before it would be a useful skill in battle. This was mainly because he had no real style and had been unable to find one at Soujiro's that would fit him. He had been trying to adapt his taijutsu style to using a sword but progress was slow and not really something you could throw a lot of kage bunshin at and be done with after an hour. His wind manipulation training was also slowly grinding to a halt, mainly because he had gone as far as possible with what training techniques he had. He had no futon jutsu, and Soujiro didn't know how or carry a book on creating jutsu from scratch, nor did the old smith have anything on pushing an alignment to the point of pure seal less jutsu. Heck, as a civilian, the old man wasn't even allowed to carry any actual jutsu scrolls, only styles and manuals. Really the only place you could find anything other than a few D rank and underpowered C rank jutsu was the Shinobi Library, a different place entirely from the public library the book that started all of this came from.

The Shinobi Library was the repository of all the jutsu donated by ninja to the village.11 It contained countless techniques ranging from the most meager D ranks to even a few S ranks left by those grizzled old farts who'd been too busy killing and learning how to do it better than anyone else to have a family or pick up an apprentice. It was of course restricted to only those of chunin rank or higher, and Naruto wasn't about to reveal all his extra training to Kakashi, mainly for fear of waking up an orange loving dobe again after an evening spent with a Yamanaka. So his progress had stalled, leaving him with two cloning techniques, a method to make those clones explode, an awesome looking but mostly useless execution technique, a lifetime supply of paper bombs and storage scrolls, above average chakra control, the ability to form wind chakra and use it to sharpen anything to the point where paper pierced wood and his claws and steel could pass through stone like water, and a skill in taijutsu that would let him kick the ass of most ordinary chunin.

Unfortunately, he did not have any real measuring stick to go by so he wasn't really aware of just how ridiculously overpowered he was getting in comparison to the usual rank and file shinobi. All he knew was that he had taijutsu skills nearly on par with the rookie of the year, emphasis on rookie, had mastered the basic chakra control exercises that everyone knew, and could use wind manipulation to make stuff sharp. The last was the most disappointing, mainly because he had hoped to be able to form a hundred blades of wind to slice up his enemies at will after reading about the capabilities of his element. Unfortunately, he later discovered it took a master to be able to form even a rudimentary shape without something to form it over. Fortunately for our young protagonist, and the plot in general, that was the exact train of thought he needed to be on. As lightning rent the suddenly stormy sky and wolves howled in the distance, an evil smile to make the devil proud slowly… you know what, I think you've got the picture and if you don't then the boy's just had an idea.12

* * *

In the Gilgamesh Armory, the proprietor was in the back of his shop working on a custom order that had been on the books for nearly a month. It pained Soujiro to admit it but he was really starting to feel his age, especially since his granddaughter had graduated from the academy last year and had been too busy to help around the shop much anymore. 'That reminds me, I've got to remember to warn her about Naruto, wouldn't do at all to have her piss him off and get her damn fool self killed. On second thought, better ask Naruto to spare her, knowing her she'd challenge him to a fight just to prove she isn't one of those little, oh what'd she call 'em, fan-girl ninjas. Poor lass, one day she's gonna have to realize that she's gonna have to diversify to survive in this world. As nice as it is to see her appreciate my work, I don't want her to die just because she thinks it's the end all be all of the shinobi arts to be able to hit ten of ten targets at fifty yards with anything with an edge to it. Maybe I should have the boyo meet up with her. It'd do her good to see what an army of assassins is capable of, especially when they're all hopped up on youki.

Ever hear that phrase speak of the devil? Well thinking of them and half-demons both count, which is part of the reason why Soujiro heard the bell on his shop door ringing followed by a call of, "Hey Soujiro, you in here old man?"

Shouting back a quick, "Just a sec, boyo," the old smith went back to work on the much delayed order. After a few minutes, he had finished the weapon itself and set it aside for later decoration. Taking off his soot stained apron, the old man walked out of his forge into the store front to greet his favorite customer. "So boyo, what'll it be today? Come for some more books or have you already run through your supplies again?"

Naruto merely shook his head, and with a look of utmost seriousness said, "I've come for a chakra weapon."

As soon as he said it, the boy braced himself. He expected an uphill battle to convince the old man to make him a weapon, and right now he was getting ready to either be laughed at or run out of the store by a hail of stabbity death. This is why his friends answer caught him completely off guard. "Alright then boyo, just tell me what you want the thing to do, and I'll tell you what I can get it to do. I'll warn you now though, there's about a month's waiting list at the moment and these things don't come cheap either, and I've got to make a living, friend or no friend."

Still somewhat stunned, the young shinobi still managed to put forth the plan he had concocted on the way over. "Actually, I had been hoping to help around the shop to pay for it, you know like store credit."

The old man considered the teenager in front of him and his proposal. There really was no reason not to take the deal. With the way the boy threw kage bunshin around he could have someone working the shop around the clock, and it would free him up to work exclusively in the forge. The only thing to decide would be the length of time he'd make the boyo work for whatever weapon he wanted. "Alright then boyo, that sounds fair, now tell me what you want and we'll figure out just how long you'll have to work for it."

Still rather stunned at how well this had went, the boy told the smith what he was looking for and quickly agreed to sending a handful of kage bunshin to serve as stock boys and cashiers every day for two weeks as payment. Once the business was settled, Soujiro remembered his earlier musings and decided to broach the subject to the young demon container in front of him. "Say boyo, would you be willing to help me with a bit of a problem I've noticed recently?"

Looking up at his friend, the younger of the two replied, "Sure Soujiro, what kind of problem is it?"

"Well, you see boyo, I have a granddaughter," the revealed grandpa explained. "Her parents were merchants, traveled all around the Elemental Countries in a caravan with a bunch of other merchants. Unfortunately, the men in charge of the caravan were greedy bastards and refused to hire proper guards, which led to most of the caravan being wiped out in a bandit attack. Some of the few to survive were my granddaughter and a friend of her parents who brought her back here to me. I've raised the girl for all her life that she can remember and it shows. She's a bit of a tomboy, and she developed a love of good steel when she was very young. That's why she decided when she joined the academy that she was going to be a weapons mistress. Unfortunately, that's all she'll train with, hell her taijutsu is still shit and she's been on the same team as a Hyuuga and a boy who's only able to use taijutsu with Konoha's premier taijutsu master as a sensei for over a year now."

Blinking a bit from the sudden rush of new info, the blonde could only think of one thing to say. "So what exactly do you want me to do about it?"

"Well boyo, the girl only uses weapons, and she only knows how to throw them for the most part as well, and you happen to regenerate and use a great deal of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and old school dirty tricks, things I want my girl to learn the worth of. She's over confident because she's never fought any other ninja's outside of her teammates and only has the little bimbos who get into this game to bag one of those bishonen geniuses that we get every few years to compare herself to. I need you to show her just how stupid it is to have only one skill and just what a jack of all trades can pull off. I'd also like you to take a couple of hits to show her what happens to over specialized ninja when they get a bad match-up. The only question is just how good is your regeneration?"

Grinning that madman's grin he'd recently developed, the blond took a kunai out of the pouch on his belt, and stabbed it through his left hand. Before Soujiro could move to help, Naruto raised his hand in front of the left side of his face, the boy's eye visible through the hole, and the old man watched as the flesh and bone quickly knitted back together, leaving behind unblemished flesh just a few moments later. Whistling, the old smith said, "Well then, I guess we know just how many hits you're gonna be takin'."

* * *

A little while later, we find the young shinobi walking towards the training grounds frequented by Team Gai. After seeing his regeneration, Soujiro had asked Naruto not only beat Tenten, but that he do it after taking everything she could possibly throw at him. Other than that, he had carte blanche to school the girl however he wanted to. He had yet to stop grinning and had he passed a mirror, he would have been surprised to see how much it resembled the Kyuubi's at this point. Actually, he probably would have started laughing like a loon and been in an even better mood if he knew of the similarity and probably would have gone out of his way to increase it. You know, it's probably a good thing he hadn't passed a mirror.

As our developing psycho reached the edge of the field, he stopped to take stock of the genin and their sensei currently using it. In the center of the field, two green blurs were clashing and separating in what Naruto guessed was a heated taijutsu spar. During the brief pauses that sometimes followed these clashes, he was able to make out a man with a bowl-cut and ridiculously huge eyebrows, wearing a full-body green spandex suit, along with a chunin vest and orange leg warmers, his hitaite was worn as a belt, and a boy about his age that was basically a clone of the older man, minus the vest. These he assumed were Tenten's sensei, Maito Gai, and his protégé, Rock Lee. On the far edge of the field sat another boy watching his sensei and teammate spar, this one wearing a grey jacket and black shorts, his black hair, worn long, and his white eyes, the Byakugan, marked him as a Hyuuga, which meant he was Tenten's teammate Neji. And finally, there was the girl herself, hair in buns, wearing a pink sleeveless blouse and blue pants, practicing her aim on a set of targets near where Naruto watched.

Target in sight, Naruto stepped out into the open and called out to his friend's granddaughter, "Hey, your name is Tenten, right?"

Broken from her concentration on her nth shot of the day, the weapons mistress turned to regard the unknown blonde approaching her. She tensed up, ready to put the kunai in her hand in his head, and checked to make sure her teammates were making their way over. Seeing they were, she turned and challenged the blonde with, "What's it to you blondie?"

She had meant to piss him off. Hell, Naruto was wondering why he wasn't at least a little perturbed, but the truth was the honest bravado from a ninja he knew to be weaker than him only served to amuse him. So it was with a smile even bigger than the one he'd worn on the trip to the training ground that he replied, "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I have come here as a favor to your grandfather. He has asked me to deliver a message whose meaning he felt he would be unable to adequately impress upon you."13

"Yosh, how youthful to see a young ninja helping both the elderly and his comrade! I, Maito Gai, the Green Beast of Konoha, commend you young Naruto! Ah but I have forgotten my manners, allow me to introduce my youthful students. You already know the lovely flower of our team, so allow me to introduce my other youthful students, the hardworking Rock Lee," he gestured to his clone on his right, "and the genius of our team, Hyuuga Neji," this time he gestured to the clearly annoyed bishonen on his left. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are the student of my Eternal Rival Hatake Kakashi, are you not?"

Caught a bit flat footed by the outburst from the asylum escapee in front of him, it took him a moment to respond, which gave him the time needed to process the title given to his sensei. Hating himself for it, he still asked, "Eternal Rival?"

Teary eyed, the jolly green giant turned his head to the sky, raised his fist to the heavens and declared, "Curse your hip ways Kakashi! You act so cool that you haven't even revealed the identity of your eternal rival to your own student!" Turning back to Naruto, he explained, "Yes young Naruto, Kakashi and I are Eternal Rivals, we compete in all things, both ninja and otherwise. Currently the scare is 47 to 46 in my favor."

Upon learning this Naruto couldn't help but think, 'I can't believe Kakashi actually tried hard enough to beat this guy that many times.' What he said was, "I'm sure Kakashi would have mentioned you sooner or later, my team was only formed a few weeks ago. Anyway, if you don't mind, there's still that message I need to deliver." He winced a little bit at the bluntness and hoped he hadn't pissed off the jonin capable of kicking his ass to Cloud and back again.

Gai of course, being Gai didn't even recognize that what Naruto had said could even be considered rude. Striking yet another pose, he grandly gestured at Tenten and said, "Of course young Naruto, I will not hinder your quest to deliver the sage advice of the Master Smith Soujiro to the youthful Tenten."14

Tenten, feeling a bit put out at being spoken of like she wasn't there when the message was for her, chose this moment to but in. "So exactly what is this message you have for me?" She began to worry that that might not have been the best thing to say when the feral grin returned to the blonde's face.

Turning back towards her, the young shinobi explained, "Well you see, I can't just tell you this message, there is a demonstration that goes along with it. For you to truly understand your grandfather's advice, you're going to have to fight me."

Smirking a little, Tenten couldn't help but taunt, "And what exactly am I going to learn from some kid who's fresh out of the academy. I doubt you've even left the village on a mission yet. Sorry but I'm not interested."

She had expected him to get angry or start whining or just leave or something, but what she hadn't expected him to start chuckling like the bad guy in an action movie. Looking her in the eye, the blonde managed to stop his chuckling to say, "Sorry but that's not an option. I owe your grandfather too much to not make sure you got the message. So if you're not interested in fighting me, I'll just have to liven things up a bit then won't I?"

Tenten was about to ask what he was talking about when he suddenly lunged at her with a knife hand thrust. Caught off guard the only thing she could manage was to jump back towards the training logs, but before she could get her bearings, he was upon her again with another thrust. She rolled to the side and heard the sound of breaking wood. As she came out of her roll, she looked back toward the crazed blonde and couldn't help but to gape in awe at the hand he had tried to strike her with. At least she tried to look at it, but that was a bit difficult as it was buried to the wrist in the hardwood log she had been standing in front of.

Naruto, still wearing that crazed grin of his, kicked the log half-way up its length, breaking it, and then flung the top towards the stunned girl to his right. The sight of the impromptu projectile was enough to snap Tenten out of her daze as she once again leapt back and away from the log. Deciding to give her a minute to get situated, Naruto called out to the girl, "So tell me hun, you interested now. And by the way, you should know I'm actually a year older than you, so you might want to learn to mind your mouth around your elders little girl."

That was enough to get Tenten ready to start fighting for real. Snarling at the blonde bastard in front of her, she began tossing a barrage of kunai and shuriken at his head, in hopes of wiping that damn smile off his face. Unfortunately for her, our favorite psycho was not only able to parry every single projectile, he was also going out of his way to cut them in half, further infuriating the weapons mistress.

That was the last straw, the bastard had the gall to destroy her weapons and he was gonna die. Taking a scroll in hand, she unfurled it around her and began unsealing a rain of stabbity death she then directed at the bastard who would dare hurt her beloved weapons. As the wave of kunai, shuriken, kama, and various other sundry edged weapons came flying towards him, the jinchuriki merely shook his head a bit and put his kunai back in the case strapped to his thigh. He made no move to dodge, and even put his arms out in a welcoming gesture as the wall of steel connected with his flesh.

Tenten was once more staring in shock, but this was quickly fading into disgust at the fact she had just killed a person, a fellow Leaf ninja at that. There was no way he could not be dead, his body was riddled with blades and there was a hatchet imbedded right in between his eyes. The girl's disgust abruptly returned to shock when the presumed corpse began chuckling. Then it just flexed, and with a slight burst of chakra, the various weapons were out of its body and littering the ground around it, save for the hatchet, which it reached up and casually pulled out of its head, like it wasn't a mortal wound. The fact that it wasn't was driven home when the very much alive teen in front of her chuckled again and said, "Nice try sweetie, now let me show you how it's supposed to be done." With that, the blonde flipped the hand axe into the air, ran through a quick series of seals just in time to catch the hatchet and throw it with a cry of "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" turning the single axe into a cloud of twenty.

This did little to intimidate Tenten, especially after she noticed there were only three axes that even had a chance of hitting her. As she dodged the first one and was preparing to dodge the second, she happened to look over at the blonde and noticed he had formed another seal. Then she heard him yell "Bunshin Daibakuha" and was immediately assaulted by a since of pain and vertigo from the explosion that sent her flying. As she saw the ground coming, her training kicked in, and she curled into a ball to roll off her momentum. Coming back up to her feet, she turned back to where her opponent had been just in time to see his clawed hand grab her face. Feeling a building warmth in his palm she quickly used a kawarimi to escape.

Naruto sensed the girl preparing to substitute her self and went ahead with his execution attack. The chakra spike lanced out and blew a hole the size of an orange into the broken training log from earlier. Looking around and seeing that his opponent had gone into hiding, he lifted his nose in the air and took a few sniffs. Picking up her scent, he took a brace of his paper bomb shuriken out of the holster on his left thigh and threw them at Tenten's hiding place without even looking. Then he brought his left hand into a seal and said, "Boom".

Meanwhile, Tenten had been looking on in horror at what her opponent's last attack had done to a log she had seen survive her sensei's attacks. Her moment of terror was broken when she saw the crazy blonde flick his wrist in her direction, followed by the sound of kunai hitting the trees around her. She was on her feet and about to move deeper into the woods when she was once again sent through the air by an explosion. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to control her landing this time, and ended up skipping across the ground a few times before coming to a stop. As she slowly stood up on unsteady legs, she saw the psycho her grandfather had sicced on her standing barley twenty feet away, arms crossed over his chest.

Naruto, smiling wider than ever, decided it was time to end the girl's lesson. Spreading his arms wide he declared, "This has been fun sugar, but I think it's about time we ended this. However, I'm the sporting sort, so I'm gonna let you have one last shot. Hit me with your strongest attack, hold nothing back. Because after that, I'm gonna stop fooling around and finish this."

Tenten was scared. Tenten was terrified. Tenten was only a few seconds away from wetting herself. Despite that, she stood before this monster her grandpa must have summoned from hell and prepared her strongest attack. She took out the two scrolls and placed them on the ground next to her. Running through the seals, she cried out "Soushoryu" as the battlefield was briefly covered with smoke. As the twin dragons formed from the smoke and rose spiraling into the air Tenten jumped between them. As the dragons dissipated, revealing the scrolls, she began throwing everything she had at the blonde demon with the kind of strength one can only gain with the knowledge that their life is about to come to an abrupt and painful end. Kunai, shuriken, kama, katana, yari, swords and knives both domestic and foreign, hell even a damn tetsubo went screaming threw the air towards the waiting shinobi. She couldn't see him due to the smoke from her attack, but she remembered where he was and prayed to any god that would hear her that she did enough damage to finally put him down.

Finally, she ran out of weapons, and dropped to the ground, waiting to see the outcome of her attack. When her opponent came into view, she could only think, 'Looks like I did remember right where he was.' His body was covered in weapons. The only places a weapon wasn't embedded were the numerous gashes that covered his body. Blood loss aside, she could see three fatal wounds, a kama in the thing's neck, a knife in both eyes, and a spear that had pierced right through the monster's heart. Tenten breathed a sigh of relief and was about to start picking up her weapons when she heard a sound that almost made her break down crying. It was a low, gurgling sound not immediately identifiable as laughter, save for the fact that its source was immediately identifiable.

The thing continued laughing as it ripped the kama out the side of its neck, spraying the grass with even more of its blood, even as the wound began to heal. Once its throat had healed, it looked at her with its stabbed out eyes and began commenting on her attack. "A nice try with the kama sweetie, but my bones are too strong for plain steel to cut, and blood loss doesn't really affect me. The eyes though, were a good try, always a good idea to blind someone. Unfortunately, they're too small to do any real damage to my brain. And of course," it began as it reached up and yanked the knives and its own eyes out, "there's no real use in blinding someone who regenerates," it lectured as it opened its eyes to reveal not empty sockets but the same pair of blue eyes it had just pulled from its skull. "This however," it said s it grabbed the spear in its chest, "was completely useless." It accentuated this by pulling out the spear, reopening the wound that had already healed around the shaft. "I will admit that aiming for the heart is generally a good strategy, but really now honey," it questioned with a smirk, "when have you ever heard of a monster that actually needed a heart." With that said, the self proclaimed monster wound back and threw the spear back at the horrified Tenten.

The speed of it was almost too much, but she still managed to barely dodge to the side, going into a roll. Coming up, she looked to her opponent to see the spear… 'Shit,' was the only thought she had time for as she whirled around to the sight of an oncoming fist. The punch knocked her off her feet and across the field. Rolling up on to her feet, she took a stance that her opponent flowed around effortlessly, and commenced with what can only be called an ass-wuppin'.

'Soujiro was right, she's barely any better than most of the kids at the academy,' was the only thought on Naruto's mind as he beat the shit out of his friend's granddaughter. He was a bit worried that he'd gone kind of over the top with his performance but he quickly rationalized it away. 'The more traumatic this is, the better the lesson will stick. Not to mention that bet me and Soujiro made.' In case you're wondering, Naruto bet Soujiro a week of work around the shop that he would either make Tenten afraid of the dark or make it so she started sleeping with a stuffed animal again.15 'That'll teach that old man to doubt just how scary I can be.' Feeling that the lesson was done, and that the girl's ribs were about to give, Naruto sweeped her off her feet and then grabbed her by the face before slamming her into the ground.

While she was still dazed, Naruto quickly knelt down on top of the girl's arm, preventing another kawarimi, and charged up his execution move. Leaning over her face, and noting the fear in her eyes between his fingers, the blonde told her, "It's over. Now it's time I delivered my message, so listen closely little girl. The reason you lost today, is not because I am strong, but because you are weak. The reason you are weak, is because you rely solely on those weapons of yours. Anyone faster than you, anyone skilled in the use of futon, doton, or even suiton jutsu, or anyone who can regenerate like me will be able to kill you without breaking a sweat. If you are set on being a kunoichi, and you wish to live for long in this world, then you must diversify. Learn some ninjutsu or genjutsu, improve your taijutsu, learn to use some of those melee weapons you were chucking at me for actual melee, I don't care. Hell, you'd be a hundred times more deadly if you would poison your weapons and use some exploding tags. Whatever you do, you must at least pick something, because you won't always have those teammates of yours to hold your enemies back while you pick them off one at a time." Message delivered, the young shinobi released his grip on the girl's face, rose, and turned to leave.

The solemnity and badassness of the moment was ruined however when Gai burst into tears and began sobbing, "I have failed you Tenten. In my quest to aid the youthful Lee in fulfilling his dream, I have let your training fall to the wayside. I swear, from this day forth, I shall do all in my power to help you become a strong kunoichi. Though my vow to Lee prevents me from teaching you ninjutsu I will"

"Wait, Gai-sensei," interrupted Lee. "It would be most unyouthful of me to hold you to your vow if it would mean that one of my teammates would be hurt because they lacked a technique you could have taught them. I would be unable to live with myself if such a thing was to occur. So please, forget your promise to me, and teach Tenten and Neji all that you know of ninjutsu and genjutsu."

Fresh tears streaming down his face, Gai turned to his pupil and said, "Oh, Lee!"

Equally teary eyed, Lee returned, "Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

And with that, the two met in a manly embrace, while waves crashed on the beach and the sun set in the distance. It took a moment for Naruto to remember that he had just been in a forest clearing, and another minute of attempting to dispel whatever genjutsu he was under before finally he broke down and asked the still crying duo, "How the hell are you guys doing that?"

Breaking their hug and the illusion, Gai looked at the teen and said, "You mean the Manly Sunset of Youth16? That is merely the result of people's brains trying to interpret the youthfulness that Lee and I give off when we embrace. Such is the passion of the fires of our youth that it tricks the mind into seeing us against a more youthful setting than what is actually around us!"

Many people, including Kurenai Yuuhi and the third Hokage, had heard this explanation and written it off as Gai having stumbled across something interesting and attributing it to youthfulness. Naruto, however, by virtue of being just a tad insane, actually listened and noticed something no one else ever had. "So it works kind of like killing intent, but instead of directing it, you just super saturate the area immediately around you?"

Somewhat surprised that someone had finally gotten it, Gai said, "Y-yes, of course the amount needed is very great, to the point where it takes the entirety of both my and Lee's youthfulness to accomplish it."

With a thoughtful look on his face, Naruto further questioned, "The way you were talking, you guys can't actually see the illusion, can you?"

"No, since it is our own youthfulness producing it, we are not affected," was Gai's response.

Now smirking once again, the blonde then requested, "Would you mind if I tried it and could you tell me if I pull it off?"

Beaming, Gai was quick to reply, "Certainly, Naruto, you're more than welcomed to attempt it, but just do not let disappointment dampen the fires of your …"

Gai was interrupted, however, by the sun choosing that moment to die, as everything became pitch black, and the temperature dropped drastically. The only thing he was able to see was Naruto, a Naruto who looked even more animalistic and demonic than ever, surrounded in a corona of evil light that seemed to twist his features into something more…vulpine. His face was sharper, the lines harder, and it seemed to be beginning to stretch into a muzzle. His eyes though, were the worse. They were now red as blood, no trace of humanity remained in them, and Gai was sure he could see the souls of the damned trapped within them. Averting his eyes from the boy's face, he sought relief from the nightmare and realized that's what the boy was. For behind him, outlined by the flickering light, stood the Kyuubi no Kitsune, its crimson eyes and fanged maw the only discernable parts of it in the gloom. Spotting him, it lunged forward and…

Suddenly, the light returned, the Kyuubi was gone, and Naruto Uzumaki was back to the way he was just moments ago. Looking back over to him, the boy asked, "So, any good?" Gai being Gai, there was only one thing he could say.

"Yosh, magnificent Naruto! Though it seems as though the flower of your youth springs forth from the crimson soil of the battlefield, it has in no way diminished the spring time of your youth! With such youthfulness, and with all that you have done to aid my youthful students, you must begin training with us at once!"

Naruto was a bit taken aback by Gai's little speech, but when he thought about it, he really couldn't find a reason not to train under Gai. His taijutsu needed work, he might be able to pick up some much needed ninjutsu, and he actually found the whole spring time of youth thing rather amusing. So, decision made, he bowed and said, "I would be honored to train under you Gai-sensei. I am ready to begin just as soon as we see to Tenten."

Unfortunately, this drew attention back to Tenten, and to the fact that Naruto's illusion had made her pass out and piss herself, though no one was quite sure of the real order. Seeing her in such a state, Naruto quietly made a clone and had it take Tenten back to her grandfather. After it was gone, the four remaining ninja stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, until Naruto decided to bight the bullet and said, "So, training?"

Shaking himself out of his stupor, Gai said, "Right, training. Yosh, come my youthful students, if we cannot run 100 laps around Konoha before nightfall, then we shall do jumping jacks until dawn!"

'Ah, what the hell,' Naruto thought, pumping his fist into the air and proclaiming, "Let us go forth and stoke the fires of our youth!"

With a chorus of "Yosh!" from the green duo, the three bounded off through the woods towards the wall surrounding the village, leaving the last of their number behind. Neji stood there a moment before sighing, and turning to return to the Hyuuga estate, thanking whatever deity responsible that it had been his fate to learn where the clan elders stored the hard liquor.

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AN: Many many apologies for the over long wait, I can't believe I let this go for so long. This chapter being in the period between the bell test and the Wave mission and all, it took me a while to plot it all out. On the bright side if you liked any of the stuff with team Gai I only thought of it last week so some good did come of the wait. Also, wave arc begins next chapter and should run straight up to the Zabuza fight and I've more of less planned this out 'til just pass the Chunin exams from there. Also, if anyone can translate or knows a program that will give me spellings using english characters, let me know because I need to translate a few technique and weapon names.

Also since tripfall managed to guess that Naruto's new style is from Spike of Cowboy Bebop, and I now know someone reads these little sidenotes I put here, the pairing for this fic is FemHakuxNarutoxHinata. There may or may not be side pairings, depending upon requests and my whims. Read and review and hopefully I'll be back much sooner next time.

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1. Delusional little bitch, ain't she?

2. Gotta admit, I felt a little gay writing that.

3. For the record, since I've mentioned it before, the true herald of the apocalypse is when Tsunade starts chasing Jiraya after he takes a vow a chastity and poverty, at the same time Naruto swears off ramen, Hinata starts trying to hook-up with Ino and Sakura at the same time and Pein decides to give up the whole god shtick and settle down with Konan and start a family.

4. If you want the chicken craving or some other fox trait made into a running gag, say so in a review. If something gets enough support, I'll try my best to start using it.

5. He's had some safe sex pamphlets and a few copies of the kama sutra stashed away since he first started testing teams.

6. See Naruto is paranoid, Kakashi just wanted to teach him a valuable lesson. For those of you who are here for the bashing, don't worry, I'm not gonna stop with the emo and the fangirl and a good part of the rest of the Rookie 9 are gonna get some too.

7. Those ten losses were some of the funniest shit ever.

8. Got the idea off of Innortal, may use it some more.

9. This was one of those ten times, and these I almost assuredly will put down some day.

10. It looks like what Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist does, but the physics are from that assassin in "No Country for Old Men"

11. Mainly the shit the Uchiha had a better version for stashed away in their library.

12. Really I'm serious, that's the last of that particular joke.

13. Don't worry, he's only talking that way because he's trying to sound like an asshole.

14. Yes, you can hear the capitals.

15. For those of you who want to know, the results of the bet will be one of the first things covered next chapter. For those of you that like Tenten, that will be the last time I pick on her.

16. Wasn't sure if it had a name or not, but that sounded like something Gai would say.


End file.
